


The Love Triangle

by theleopards



Category: Kaylor - Fandom, Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: Childhood Memories, Eating Disorders, Explicit Language, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Folklore, High School, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Songfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:01:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25620244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleopards/pseuds/theleopards
Summary: A compilation of memories from Betty, Inez, and James – three teenage girls whose lives changed drastically ever since the Finlays moved to Manhattan. Inspired by the album Folklore, by Taylor Swift.
Relationships: Dianna Agron/Taylor Swift, Karlie Kloss/Taylor Swift
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25





	The Love Triangle

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So, first of all, disclaimer: this is a piece of fiction, and even though I reference real people, it doesn't mean I think their personalities are similar to those of the characters I wrote about. It's just my way of thanking Taylor for writing an amazing album and giving me so much to analyze, wonder about.
> 
> Second: I'll be posting 4 chapters – the point of view of each girl and a prologue. Again, this is a compilation of memories, tinged with the feelings and interpretations made by each character.
> 
> Third: this is MY interpretation of the songs, which may not please everyone, but that's what's magical about art. For example, I know some people don't believe Inez is the third party in the love triangle, but I like the idea and I went along with it. Please, check the tags for trigger warnings.
> 
> And last but not least: English is not my first language, so I'm sorry if I let any grammar errors slide.
> 
> Hope you like it!

Even though the windows were shut, Elizabeth Kushner could still hear high heels clicking on the sideways. It started when she was six and the Finlays moved to the house next to hers, the first time she heard the ominous sound approaching her doorstep. Then, she was quick to hide behind her daddy’s leg and watch curiously as a blonde woman – tall and slender, much like her own mother – introduced herself as Harriet Finlay. Harriet had a six-year-old daughter, she said, who could play with Elizabeth! Her daddy, way more excited than she felt, marveled at the idea. Mrs. Finlay had an older boy, too, a couple of blond angels! _What a blessing!_

Unlike Elizabeth’s mother, Elise, Harriet wore fitted clothing, eye-catching jewelry, and the goddamned high heels. Her mother didn’t care for any of that, at least not anymore, and always flinched at the sound of high heels on the sideways as if it offended her.

It didn’t take long for her to get used to her new neighbors’ routine. Every time she spied around her bedroom’s curtains to see Harriet leaving the white picket fence house, the woman looked ready for one of the fancy dinners Elizabeth’s father used to host on Saturday nights. In those dinners, the tallest men she’d ever seen gathered around Richard Kushner, arms around beautiful women dressed just like Mrs. Finlay, and laughed loudly at jokes they didn’t really find funny. Her mother never left her bedroom during those nights. When Elizabeth asked her why, she said that _one day, Betty, when you’re older, you’ll learn to avoid what you can’t fix_.

Betty wrote it down. She didn’t understand it then, but most things her mom said didn’t make sense immediately.

The Summer the Finlays arrived in Manhattan was the hottest since 1999. Betty’s hair was getting lighter with every day under the scorching sun, and every half hour her mom descended the marble stairs with a bottle of sunscreen. It wasn’t just her playing in the garden, though. Her cousins, Mara and Jason, spent the entire Summer dragging their toys back and forth between their houses and the Kushner residence. The only unexpected presence was that of James and Aaron Finlay.

Her first impression of James was that she smelled funny. Not like the other children (grass, mud, spit, and chlorine), but like an adult. She smelled of flowers, summery fruits, freshly washed clothes. James never got dirty, and she pouted for hours if one of the other kids splashed water on her. Once, Betty dragged her dirty little hands across James’s perfectly pink dress, just to test the waters. While Aaron might’ve gotten revenge, laughing maniacally in the way only a child could, James cried. Quietly, without a fuss. She cried like Betty had seen Mrs. Finlay cry once, through the side window.

That incident only caused James to isolate herself even further.

The closest they’d ever gotten before high school was that one time when they were both seven years old, and Betty had learned how to do braids in a magazine. She just needed someone to serve as her guinea pig, and since Mara was spending the Summer with gramma, James was the only option. Betty thought that to convince James of letting her touch that nest of tidy curly hair would be an arduous task, but the girl agreed to it immediately. She seemed happy to be a part of the play for once and sat obediently in front of Betty for the fifteen minutes it took the taller girl to improvise what looked like a braid but wasn’t… quite. James liked it well enough, though. She wore it for the rest of the day and came back to Betty every day that Summer.

During the next Summer, though, Betty waited impatiently for the request. She had even stolen some new magazines from her mom, learned new hairstyles. James never asked her again, and Mara ended up with some crazy knots in her hair.

***

Middle school was a blur. The Finlays were still very much present in her life, even though she never exchanged more than five words with any of them on a good day. Betty remembered seeing James in the corridors and thinking about how well she seemed to fit in. That was not the James she was used to: the quiet, sad little girl who never had anyone to push her on the tire swing.

The James who walked around the school was what every girl in her class aspired to be, an electric pink façade. She was the first one to wear makeup and tight clothes, the first to kiss a boy on the mouth, best friends with the school’s biggest gossip, voted most beautiful in every childish ranking. _Too bad our school doesn’t have a cheerleading program_ , Betty thought to herself. _It could be just like in the movies._

When they reached high school, her locker being next to Inez’s – the best friend who couldn’t keep a secret to save her life –, Betty always thought she knew just as much about James’s crazy life as a stranger could. Well, anyone’s life. Inez did have a talent for predatory journalism.

***

The high heels didn’t belong to Mrs. Finlay, anymore. Most of the time, they belonged to James, always late for school – but not as late as Betty. Whenever James’s heels hit the cobblestones, Betty knew she’d better hurry.

She knew the time lost applying eyeliner and black lipstick, trying to get her feet through the distressed pantyhose, and tying the laces on her combat boots, was exactly the amount of minutes ticking on the teacher’s wristwatch. But the look, the _horrified_ look on Mr. Kushner’s face the first time Betty stepped in the kitchen looking like that, was enough to convince her it was a time well spent.

They fought that morning. Betty thought it would be her chance to metaphorically abandon the bastard, to make a triumphal exit through the front door, not giving a fuck about traditional values and good girl behavior. She could feel the blood thrumming in her ears with the adrenaline of defying her dad for the first time, but, as soon as she started screaming back, he simply turned his back, grabbed his briefcase, and left the house.

Mr. Kushner had always let the small delinquencies slide. Black makeup, “slutty” outfits, loud music… he never once repeated himself about those misdemeanors. It was almost like he allowed them, like he accepted Betty, but she was quick to realize it was the same game he played with his business partners. He wasn’t accepting, he was tolerating – and, most importantly, he was trying to make Betty believe he was indeed the good, patient father she thought she had, while planning out for her the same miserable life he had graced her mother with. He always turned his back on her, but it never meant she won.

***

"What’s the fucking problem with you?!” James asked between clenched teeth. It was the first time Betty had ever heard the girl swearing, and the shock was enough to delay her answer. “Mom spent the entire month planning this dinner for you, and you’ve ruined everything! Ungrateful bitch. Couldn’t even change your fucking clothes.”

She was still gaping at James, standing in a muted pink silky dress, dirty words flowing out of her glossy lips like a litany. Betty was an audience of one in the middle of the Finlays’ garden, sharing the sight only with a few fireflies. Fascinating.

“Now you’re quiet? A little late, don’t you think? Could’ve kept your stupid mouth shut in there, too.”

“I just wanna see how far your vocabulary goes,” Betty said finally, a dangerous grin on her lips. James’s eyes widened, and she lifted delicate hands to her mouth. It was like her mind had only then caught up with her tongue. “Are you done?”

A small shift in the other girl’s stance told Betty that her pristine self-control was back in place, her shit was back together.

“Do you really want me to be your sister-in-law, princess?” She stepped closer. James took a step back.

“Mom says it’s for the best.” James frowned.

“So you wanna be _family_? I can only imagine Christmas will be a blast!”

“Just shut up and do as you’re told, Elizabeth. God, you’re so frustrating!”

“Easy for you to say!” Betty’s tone of voice was escalating, out of her control. “Your only ambition is marrying one of my rich cousins and fucking around the neighborhood like your mom, but some of us have other hobbies!”

James’s face was turning red, and Betty had one moment of clarity, one brief moment when her heightened senses captured the most random events. A firefly brushing past her arm, grass tingling her ankles as the wind swept around her legs, and the sound of an old, pink skateboard being rattled by that same force, calling her attention from where tears started to form in James’s eyes.

“You don’t know me,” the girl whispered, voice reduced to the same quiet tone she used as a child, but it didn’t have the well-known tinge of childish obstinacy. Something shattered in Betty’s chest as she watched the teenage girl in front of her turn into something else. Into a ghost of her future.

James lowered her eyes and sneaked back inside as fast as she surged through the wooden door minutes before. The cold air blew forcefully again through the leaves, singing in Betty’s ear, and knocking down the old skateboard from where it rested against a sturdy tree.

***

If asked, Betty wouldn’t be able to point out exactly where it started. Where it all went wrong. But after their fight in the garden, she found herself frequently searching for James’s elegant figure in their high school corridors. Running a nervous hand through her short blonde hair, Betty let her eyes roam the place, and usually didn’t even realize what they were looking for before blue eyes met hers. A gasp, a second, and it was all over until it happened again.

Betty’s newest obsession was established, just like that. James had always been a taken-for-granted fact in her life, and now she was a wild card. _You don’t know me_ , she had said, and it was a pretty generic answer to a shady remark. But something about that moment made Betty stutter around the subject whenever Mara asked her why she was suddenly so interested in attending school events. _When I know you, will I stop losing sleep_?

***

It was the first time she showed up at her dad’s stupid Saturday gatherings in years, wearing her favorite worn-out T-shirt. Of course, her small effort wouldn’t be appreciated by the type of people who attended these dinners, but she wasn’t trying to impress. Her eyes were, as per usual, already set on a mission.

Betty spotted James as soon as she made her way around the line of bespoke suits and reached the hall. It was like seeing the girl for the first time. All these years of watching her from far away and Betty never realized just how uncomfortable she seemed, trying to disentangle herself from old men and their loose hands. Just how sad she looked; eyes glued to the floor until someone talked to her. And then, when it happened, a bright smile illuminated her face but never reached her eyes, or her hands. Betty, for some reason, knew that James was an expansive person. She watched her with Inez for the last few days, she remembered wild hands flying around to express frustration that night in the garden. But there, making small talk with businessmen and socialites, James kept her hands tacitly next to her lithe body.

Ocean blue eyes found Betty’s. A gasp. A second. But this time Betty was walking toward her, and there was panic in James’s expression.

“Hey, I wanted to show you something.”

***

As she watched Aaron and James bickering around the dinner table, Betty tried to convince herself that the fluttering feeling trapping her heart was a natural reaction to the sight of the boy she was supposed to marry one day, but suddenly there was the memory of the velvety moss covering the trees in her garden. Betty wondered about how it must’ve felt against James’s back when she pushed the girl against it the night before. She didn’t mean to do that – and she watched James’s skin carefully, to check if it bruised, when the girl turned her back to Betty and left the house half an hour later. It didn’t. Her tanned skin looked just as smooth as ever.

“Elizabeth, I’m talking to you.”

Mr. Kushner had his hard eyes set on Betty’s small figure when she emerged from her daydream.

“Yes?”

“Will you please show Mrs. Tremblay your promise ring?”

Betty wasn’t taken aback by the request. She inhaled deeply, trying hard not to roll her eyes, as she outstretched her arm over the table to show the old woman the small, but shiny stone attached to her middle finger.

“Aaron has excellent taste, my dear. I’m happy for you lucky children!”

***

Growing closer to James had its setbacks. With the advantage of being able to pull the girl into a corner and kiss her senseless, came the responsibility of hiding in plain sight. She should’ve given it more thought, before kissing James back for the first time. Because after, well, after that kiss she was lost.

They had been meeting at Betty’s garden for weeks, talking about everything and nothing, lying on the grass in absolute silence for hours, before something gave Betty the nerve to place her hand just a little farther from her body, just enough that her fingers were grazing the side of James’s hand, and it all went downhill.

“Remember when I used to braid your hair?”

“Yeah, and you were lousy at it.”

“You loved it! You kept coming back!”

“You’re stupid if you think I was doing it for the braids,” James said with a deadpan that elicited a chuckle from Betty’s chest.

“Did you… like me? Like, as a person? For real?” She asked, doing that thing with her eyebrows that James abhorred, turning her body to face the other girl.

“Oh, shut up, Elizabeth.” James rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. There was a smudge of mud across the side of her blue dress.

“You did! Oh my God, James, you actually have a heart!” Betty teased, but her joke fell flat.

“Why would you think I don’t?”

“Well, because… You always do as you’re told, and you make it seem easy.”

James lifted her upper body, supporting her weight on scratched elbows, and looked directly into Betty’s eyes. Whatever she was searching for there she didn’t find it. “You have no idea, do you?” She whispered.

James’s lips didn’t find any resistance from Betty’s – pliant, falling open with a whimpering sigh. It was sweet, and endearing, and tasted like tea and cherry gloss. And then James was lying down again, grass under Betty’s forearms, hands touching her face with gentle urgency.

“Have you ever done this before?” Even though Betty interrupted the kiss, she still had her eyes shut, afraid that opening them would wash the fantasy away.

“Never.”

James’s chest was heaving under hers, and that’s why she made the mistake to believe.

***

“Why do you wear all that shit?” James grumbled, but there wasn’t a bite to her words. Her voice was barely a whisper – she wasn’t supposed to be in Betty’s room so late at night. Her careful fingers grazed the raw skin under Betty’s eyes, wiping away the black tears threatening to stain her cheeks. She was deliberately avoiding the soft purple spot already forming on the girl’s cheekbone.

“Says the girl who just climbed a tree wearing high heels.”

“Shut up, you’re the one looking like a clown.”

James stupid little grin was way too inviting. Betty thought it’d be wiser to stare at the wall.

“I don’t really like wearing it, to be honest. It’s way too much work.”

“Then why do you?” James stood up and disappeared into the bathroom. She returned with a wet cloth and sat down next to Betty again, pressing it against the forming bruise. The cloth was cold. Betty flinched.

“Same reason you, _ouch,_ don’t own a single pair of pants. Never saw you in anything but summer dresses and furry coats. We all dance to our parents’ music here, just in… different ways.”

“You know I _do_ own a pair of pants, right?” James smiled, not lowering her hand from where it rested against Betty’s cheek.

“I don’t believe you.”

James raised her eyebrows.

“Bold of you to assume I’d be able to skateboard in a dress.”

“Wait, do you skateboard?”

“See? You don’t know me, Elizabeth, at all.” James’s words sounded a lot like a challenge. Betty decided she was up for it. “So, are you gonna tell me how _this_ ,” she pressed the towel softly against Betty’s face again, “happened?”

Betty inhaled deeply. James’s hand found hers over the duvet.

“I entered my mom’s room at the wrong time. She was throwing everything she could find at my dad and I think it was an ashtray that hit me.”

“Are you sure that was all?” James’s worried eyes found hers and slid to the greenish spots marking the pale skin on Betty’s elbow where her sleeves were rolled up. Instinctively, Betty pulled back from James’s touch, putting as much space between them as she could, and rolled down her sleeves.

The memory of walking like a lost child around the corridors, the loneliest she had ever felt in her life, skin burning where her bruises grazed the soft fabric of her cardigan, was suddenly making its way to the forefront of her mind. The memory of needing James, just like she needed her that night, but the girl was nowhere to be found.

“These are old news.”

“I hadn’t seen them before.”

“You probably would’ve if you cared enough to talk to me at school.”

James winced at the sudden change in her tone. She almost looked regretful. “You know I can’t.”

“You’re the one who kissed me and now you think I’ll keep playing hide-and-seek until you get tired?”

“Stop it, Betty! I’m here. Why isn’t that enough?”

“Because if you can only see me on weekends, then who gets the rest of you? Jason?” She could feel blue eyes burning the side of her face. “Inez?”

“You mean, the same way you walk around with a promise ring from my brother?”

The silence that followed was disturbing. Betty felt like crumbling down in tears, but suddenly it didn’t seem right to cry in front of James. It took all her self-control not to start sobbing as soon as James, suddenly much closer than the last time Betty risked a glance at her, sneaked warm hands under her sweatshirt, around her waist.

“What can I do to make it better?”

Betty let her eyes fall shut. She couldn’t look at James’s soft features, honest eyes – it would feel like sealing her fate, if she started crying at the mere sight of the girl she was falling for. Instead, she leaned forward, guided by the warmth of James’s breath, and sealed their lips.

It was easy to fall in rhythm with the clumsy tangle of hands and legs over the duvet, with the soft wet kisses James burned from her jaw to her collarbones and her stomach, and how easy it was to bunch the fabric of James’s dress at her waist as the girl breathed in her ear.

***

The sound of plastic wheels on the pavement was what made Betty look up, only to find a completely different version of James than the one she was used to. They had planned to escape for the night, to a bar downtown, where no one knew who they were. Holding hands, drunken kisses, James in sneakers and her old Levis. Irresistible.

“You’re wearing jeans.”

“Yes, great observational skills,” James answered, a smug grin on her face as she expertly flipped the skate and grabbed its truck.

“And a T-shirt.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“I’m just… give me a second to process. It’s too much.”

James sat laughing next to her on the curb. The only sources of light on the street were a few lampposts, the moonlight, and Betty’s iPhone screen, long-forgotten next to her thighs. “And you’re not wearing the goddamned black lipstick. I’ll finally be able to kiss you without outing myself.”

***

Her last good memories were those of James, dancing around a street they didn’t know the name of, open arms as she tried to balance herself, but the stainless-steel flask was still clutched in her hand. The roughness of concrete against her back as James kissed her in the most public setting they’d ever kissed in. James was wearing her cardigan, and that was why she could still recall, years after, the feeling of soft sleeved hands scraping her bare arms. A daisy tickling her temples where James had stuck it behind her ear. 

The feeling of not having a single care in the world, the possibility of never even returning home written all over the expanse of her girlfriend’s skin. They could just run away. James would follow her anywhere.

“Will you be my date to the Summer dance?” Betty slurred, half-kneeling in front of the other girl. It sounded like a great idea in her hindered mind.

“Oh, darling, yes,” came the exaggerated response, a fit of laughter, and everything went to shit since then.

***

It was painful to think about the forty minutes she spent sitting on the school stairs, her long purple dress grazing the low vegetation. It belonged to her mother – Betty hadn’t owned a dress since fifth grade. She wondered if James had forgotten about the dance, if alcohol had erased her mind, but they weren’t drunk enough that night. Maybe James thought it was all a joke, but then again, Betty had left a sticker note on her window: _“can’t wait to dance with you all night.”_

It would be suspicious, slow dancing with a girl she was barely seen with, in front of the entire school, but they could pull it off as _gal pals_ , couldn’t they? And even if they couldn’t, did Betty care? She didn’t. She didn’t give a fuck.

It took her forty minutes to realize James wasn’t coming and make her way inside, alone, as people whispered trying to guess who the boy was that stood her up. Aaron was quick to grab the opportunity, and she was already numb when he sneaked his arm around her waist. They took pictures in front of the sparkling thematic mural, he served her strawberry punch, and Betty wondered if he knew. When she feared he was about to kiss her, he was only getting closer to whisper “I’m sorry” in her ear.

“I’m sorry, too.”

***

James apologized. Of course, there was little James did back then besides apologizing. They fought, the worst fight they’d ever had. All Betty could remember from that fight, though, was her girlfriend turning around and leaving through the front door. Maybe James was just overwhelmed by Betty’s tears flowing freely, Betty’s voice crashing as she tried not to scream. But it didn’t matter. James left.

Every time Mrs. Finlay left her house that Summer, high heels clicking on cobblestones, Betty flinched with her mother.

***

New school year. Betty had worse things to worry about.

As she walked to school, refusing to drive the car her daddy had bought with dirty money, it didn’t surprise her to see his face on a bunch of pamphlets thrown around the street. They were covered with the American flag and the words “traditional values”, floating around without meaning. The only practical meanings of these words were the metaphorical iron grip around her neck and the not-so-metaphorical ring around her finger.

***

One time, when she was watching TV with her mother during the last days of vacation, she brought up her father’s newest political adventures. They were sprawled on the king-sized bed, laughing at a Golden Girls episode, but the words had been hanging over Betty’s head, as well as Elise’s, the whole time.

“Did you know dad asked me to travel with his campaign team on the weekends?”

“Did he give you another option?”

“He never does.”

Elise held Betty’s hands in between her smaller, more delicate ones. It was funny how she managed to grow bigger than both her parents before even becoming an adult.

“I know you have to go. But while you’re out there, just remember you’re not a Kushner. You’re a Kloss. You can do whatever the hell you want, baby.”

***

Running errands was a nightmare. Every store, every street, was a place where she could potentially run into James. Betty dreamt that maybe James would still be wearing her cardigan. Every blonde tall girl – and believe when I say Manhattan is filled with those – was James for two heart-stopping seconds. But then they weren't, and relief ran just as deep as heartbreak.

***

Betty was so late she didn’t eat anything before leaving the house, and soon realized that running all that way on an empty stomach was a bad idea. There were black and green spots covering her vision, boring holes on the empty school corridor, as she made her way to her locker. She must have been pretty obvious about her predicament because, before she could try to find balance pressing her head against the cold metal of her locker’s door, a pair of strong hands found her elbows and eased her to the ground.

“Hey, Elizabeth, are you okay? Can you talk?”

She tried to nod, tried to clear her vision. A familiar face was staring right back at her, curious hazel eyes and a blond ponytail. She tried to speak, but her mind went blank again. All she could do was rest her head against the metal doors again and try to focus on Inez’s melodic voice.

“I’ll take you to the infirmary, but first, lay down, like… that. And here, I’ll hold your legs up, so your brain gets a blood supply. You know, I think I’m almost an expert after this Summer. James never eats enough. She crashed down on me so many times, even when we…”

James’s name was enough to bring some alertness to Betty’s hindered brain. She opened her eyes, frowning, trying to make sense of the words Inez was saying. “You spent the Summer together?” Her voice wasn’t more than a whisper, but Inez was nothing if not a great listener.

“Of course,” Inez answered, a smile tugging at her lips. It seemed innocent enough, but Betty could recognize a snide remark when she heard one. “I think you know James and I are really… close.”

Betty’s eyes widened and her mind spun out of her control, but she needed to get up and away from Inez. After almost kicking the other girl’s stomach, she found herself crawling away from the lockers, trying to make her legs work under her weight. It felt like a nightmare, the ones where your legs melt like they’re made of lead, and your head sways as a monster catches up with your painfully slow steps.

Even years after that day, she’d still insist on that description. When she looked back at the dark events that took place in that year, it never felt like teenage drama. It felt like grief.

***

After leaving the infirmary with a muffin and a grape juice box, still empty stomach filled with dread, she made her way to the school counselor's office and requested to change her homeroom. On the corridors, James always glanced at her with a guilty, terrible expression contorting her beautiful face. Betty prayed to any divinity that the rest of the year would pass without her having to exchange a single word with James again. She couldn’t take it; and she didn’t.


End file.
